Friday Newsletter: New Info on U.S. World Cup 2026 Bid Cities
Plus I Answer Your Mailbag Queries
Last week’s Friday newsletter handicapping the race to be one of the 10 U.S. host cities for World Cup 2026 drew a ton of response, both from readers and from additional sources who filled my inbox with all sorts of intriguing information. So this week I did some more digging and learned a few more things.
The usual caveats apply here. Nothing is set in stone yet, and I’m merely using the information I’m hearing from sources to handicap the race ahead of the official announcement set for mid-June. So let’s dive in:
• Bid cities are nervous about an upcoming document from FIFA. We wrote last week about the frustration and fatigue felt by U.S. bid cities with FIFA over how overly long the process has taken. One of the biggest worries now from the bid committees is over a new addendum document that FIFA told cities late last year would be coming their way. Six months later, that document has yet to arrive, and cities are worried that in it FIFA will press to put more costs on the host cities at such a late moment in the bidding cycle. FIFA has a lot of leverage now and knows it, and it traditionally wants to push as many costs onto the host cities as possible. But will the cities play along or push back?
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